Join the Conversation

Old buildings, new uses: Phoenix preserves history

Old buildings in Phoenix rejuvenated

Take a look at some of Phoenix's successful adaptive-reuse projects in our new before-and-after feature.

180 Degrees Automotive (545 W. Mariposa St.) Unlike some other adaptive-reuse projects, this building was renovated for the same use: as an automotive repair shop. However, owner Sarah "Bogi" Lateiner wanted her auto body shop to be particularly welcoming to women and the new space has a completely different feel.
City of Phoenix

Hide Caption

Angels Trumpet Ale House (810 N. Second Ave.) The location used to be the office of Mat Englehorn, a local real-estate broker for more than 20 years. He and his wife, Sharry, decided to open Angel's Trumpet Ale House in 2012.
City of Phoenix

Hide Caption

Bragg's Pie Factory. This 15,000-square-foot structure was built in 1947 by the Bragg family as a pie bakery. Beatrice Moore and her partner Tony Zahn purchased the building in 2004, renovated it and listed it on both the city historic register and the National Register of Historic Places. The building currently houses a variety of small independent businesses, including a vegetarian cafe, a tattoo shop, a hair salon and art studios.
Beatrice Moore

Hide Caption

Capriotti's (6025 N. 16th St.) This branch of a national sandwich-shop chain is nearly unrecognizable as a former 7-Eleven convenience store
City of Phoenix

Hide Caption

Corner on 7th (1515 N. Seventh Ave.) With some TLC, a cluster of formerly nondescript retail space on Seventh Avenue and McDowell Road has become a thriving corner of shops and restaurants.
City of Phoenix

Hide Caption

Desert Song Healing Arts Center (3232 N. 20th St.) The former Electrician's Union Hall is now a healing arts center that offers yoga, massage and tai chi and meditation classes.
City of Phoenix

Hide Caption

Dudley Ventures (22 E. Jackson St.) In 2009, the tax credit capital firm Dudley Ventures moved into a downtown Phoenix warehouse that formerly was home to Arizona Hardware Supply Co.
Motley Design Group

Hide Caption

Refuge Cafe (4727 N. Seventh Ave.) What used to be a central Phoenix florist shop is now a coffee house by day and a wine bar by night. Proceeds benefit programs run by the Catholic Charities Community Services of Arizona.
City of Phoenix

Hide Caption

Shine Coffee (10 W. Vernon Ave.) Shine Coffee is housed in two separate - and already architecturally distinct - brick structures that used to be owned by a dentist in the 1950s. "It's like a tornado dropped off something from Ohio in downtown Phoenix," said Laryn Blok, who owns the business with her husband, Christiaan. The walk-up coffee bar is housed in an old pool house, while an indoor seating area (aka Shine Coffee's "living room") is in the adjacent former home.
City of Phoenix

Hide Caption

Taco Guild (546 E. Osborn Road) This restaurant is part of Old School 07, an adaptive-reuse project on a site that once housed the Bethel Methodist Church congregation, which operated a church and school buildings dating to the late 1800s and 1940s. The property has three stand-alone facilities.
City of Phoenix

Hide Caption

The Vig Uptown (6015 N. 16th St.) The old Arizona Bank on 16th Street north of Bethany Home Road in Phoenix is now the Vig Uptown restaurant. The building was designed by Ralph Haver and has his signature use of cast concrete, glass and dramatic horizontal planes.
HKR via Modern Phoenix/Jesse Rieser

Hide Caption

The Yard (5632 N. Seventh St.) What was once a motorcycle garage and dealership became in 2013 a 53,000-square-foot restaurant cluster known as the Yard. It is home to Culinary Dropout, Little Cleo's Seafood Legend, Lola Coffee and occasionally The Rocket, a food truck serving wood-fired pizza.
City of Phoenix

Hide Caption

Fuzzy's Taco Shop (4231 E. Thomas Road) The property used to be the Ralph Haver-designed Arizona Bank building, built in 1961. Craig Christenson said his family, which owns the property, wanted to "redevelop the property without using a bulldozer." They refurbished and transformed it into the baja-style mexican food restaurant.
Courtesy of Craig Christenson

Drive the streets of downtown and central Phoenix and you may do several double takes: What appears to be a church is actually a taco restaurant. A former pie factory now houses numerous small businesses. And upon closer inspection, an old brick pool house is a walk-up coffee bar.

Phoenix established its adaptive reuse program in 2008 to help streamline the process of renovating existing buildings for new business uses.

Since then, more than 100 successful adaptive-reuse projects have sprung up across the city.

There are some restrictions: A former schoolhouse couldn't be renovated to become, say, an adults-only book store. However, officials say by and large the program has inspired creative transformations and helped preserve Phoenix's history, one structure at a time.

Mary Beth Markus, owner of Desert Song Healing Arts Center, opened her business in a building that once housed the Electrician Union's Hall, near 20th Street and Osborne Road.

Markus said the city was accommodating throughout the process, going as far as waiving some fees and expediting certain stages.

"They sort of held our hands all the way through that process of getting the permits and where it would normally take several months, we could normally get things done in six weeks," she said. "It was just amazing. I loved working with them."

Markus added that renovations came with some challenges, including having to gut the building almost entirely thanks to plumbing and electrical systems that weren't up to code. The spaciousness of the building, she said, was worth the effort to renovate, and its oddly shaped rooms work well with her layout.

"It was perfect for me because I have three yoga rooms and I have three massage rooms and a consult room and a foyer and boutique," Markus said. "So all of those areas were really good in a way because we could take those weird rooms and make them studios."

Similarly, Beatrice Moore and Tony Zahn spent four years renovating the old Bragg's Pie Factory building at Grand and 13th avenues. What some might have viewed as an awkwardly-shaped building at an awkward intersection has since become a cluster of independent businesses and studios and a popular artistic hub near downtown Phoenix.

"It's not always a tear-down that's always the best option," Moore said. "But people have a hard time envisioning that. ... Oh guess what, you can fix that building up. You don't have to tear it down to make this corner look good again."

Take a look at some of Phoenix's successful adaptive-reuse projects in our new before-and-after feature. Know of a unique building transformation you would like to recommend? E-mail christina.leonard@arizonarepublic.com.

Taco Guild on Osborn Road in Phoenix is part of Old School 07, an adaptive-reuse project on a site that once housed the Bethel Methodist Church congregation.(Photo: City of Phoenix)